See Also ›

The term “Romanesque”
refers to a style that dominated the art and architecture of churches and
ecclesiastical buildings in Europe from around 1000 to 1200. Romanesque
sculpture is integral to the architectural elements it decorates. This lioness
with her two suckling cubs, for example, supported a column on her back, and is
thought to have come from one of the side entrances, called the “Portal of the
Lions,” of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna....

The term “Romanesque”
refers to a style that dominated the art and architecture of churches and
ecclesiastical buildings in Europe from around 1000 to 1200. Romanesque
sculpture is integral to the architectural elements it decorates. This lioness
with her two suckling cubs, for example, supported a column on her back, and is
thought to have come from one of the side entrances, called the “Portal of the
Lions,” of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna....

The term “Romanesque”
refers to a style that dominated the art and architecture of churches and
ecclesiastical buildings in Europe from around 1000 to 1200. Romanesque
sculpture is integral to the architectural elements it decorates. This lioness
with her two suckling cubs, for example, supported a column on her back, and is
thought to have come from one of the side entrances, called the “Portal of the
Lions,” of the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna.

A lion is a logical
choice for a door guardian, but lions also had specific Christian associations
as expressed in medieval bestiaries, manuscripts which layered Christian
allegory over animal lore from various sources. In a Europe that naturally saw
very little of real African lions, inaccurate information persisted about them,
such as the belief that they brought forth their young dead, and on the third
day were breathed to life by their mother—the association with Christ’s
resurrection is clear.

This particular lion once
belonged to Juliana Armour Ferguson, the heiress to the Chicago Armour meat-packing
fortune, and, in the form of a fountain and paired with a male lion atop
a column resting on its back, graced the grounds of her estate in Huntingdon,
Long Island. After the home became vacant and derelict in the 1960s, many
medieval sculptures built into the house narrowly escaped the wrecking ball
when it was demolished in 1970. This relatively recent event, and not the
sculpture’s seven centuries of prior existence, explains the damage to the
lioness’s cubs and her lower jaw—sustained, it is believed, during the
sculpture’s hasty removal from the property.